Asylum (Asylum, #1)(28)

Outside, it had started raining. That would make getting to dinner a little less pleasant. But after the afternoon he’d just had, Dan was eager for friendly company, and it was already five minutes till five, so there’d soon be people in the dining hall. He snatched up the hydra note and headed downstairs. As he passed the hallway leading down to the old wing, he felt a sudden temptation to go there and hide, but he pressed on to the main doors, shaking off the fear that was creeping down his back.



Dan pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt and ran through the downpour to the Commons. He shook himself off when he reached the entrance, then followed the line of students forming inside the cafeteria.

Mac and cheese night. Could be worse. Dan grabbed a tray, his eyes roaming over half-familiar faces as he looked for his friends. He saw Yi come in and wave to a few guys on the other side of the room before getting in line right behind him.

“How’s it going?” Yi asked, drumming his fingers on his pastel-blue tray.

“You know, the usual. Studying. Classes.” Threatening notes, psychos. “Yourself?”

“So amazing.” Yi pulled a slip of paper out of his cargo pants and handed it to Dan. Oh God, did Yi get a strange note, too? But when he unfolded it, Dan saw it was only a printed-out dating profile for someone with the screen name Chloe_Chloe13. She liked skiing and Amélie.

“I’m studying abroad on a scholarship in the fall. Conservatory in Paris . . .” Dan handed the paper back and watched Yi smiling dreamily down at it. “Just a few more months and I’ll be swimming in hot, foreign women.”

Dan coughed.

“Yeeaaaah, I could have phrased that better.” Yi put Chloe_Chloe13 back in his pocket. The line moved forward. “How’s things on the Abby front?”

“Hm?” They sidled up to the buffet. Dan slopped macaroni onto his warm plate. “How did you . . . ?”

“Jordan mentioned a date or something. How’d it go?” Surprisingly, Yi bypassed the mac and cheese and went for the vegan offering, something with lentils and unidentifiable chunks of vegetable matter.

“Things with Abby are good!” Dan managed to croak. Honestly, he didn’t know what to think, considering how Abby had been this morning. “And I guess it was a date. We just got dinner at Brewster’s, hung out. . . . It was a nice time.” Dan dug the big metal ladle into the macaroni again, preparing to take another serving.

“Bullshit. You get any?”

Dan dropped the spoon, and it clattered against the edge of the buffet. He caught it, but not before splattering himself with globs of cheese product. “Crap, that’s hot!” He half elbowed, half bumped the spoon back into the tray and tried to brush the neon-orange cheese off his forearm.

Yi chuckled, moving away from the line. “I’ll take that as a no.”

Swearing, Dan grabbed a dinner roll from the pile and then walked over to their usual table. He dropped into the chair nearest the window, brooding over his steaming plate of food. His time with Abby last night felt private—not something to be discussed casually over the dinner line. Or maybe it was just that he didn’t know how things stood, and he didn’t want to jinx them by bragging. He rubbed at the splotchy red marks on his skin. They were still smarting.

“Hey.”

It was Abby. Her hair was in a damp tangle and her eyes were red. She set her tray on the table and sat down slowly, as if moving through water.

“Hey,” Dan said, forgetting his burn.

“Can I sit? I mean, I am sitting already but . . .” She looked down into her soup, sighing. “Do you mind?”

“No, by all means,” Dan said. “I was hoping you’d turn up.”

“Yeah?” Smiling, Abby put her elbows onto the table. “Thanks. I was . . . I was pretty horrible at breakfast. But I have a good excuse, I promise. I wouldn’t just . . . I wouldn’t just be like that.”

“It’s okay if you were,” he replied. “We all have rotten days.” He nodded to the window behind them, where the rain fell in noisy sheets against the glass. “See? The weather’s feeling like crap, too.”

“No, I like the rain. It’s relaxing. Refreshing.” She gazed out the window. Puddles were forming in the low dips of the grass and along the pathways, and the mist was swirling so that the rain and fog couldn’t be teased apart. “I needed a bit of rain.”

Dan smiled. Already she was making him feel better. He decided he’d wait for Jordan to get there before mentioning the note, so he and Abby more or less ate in comfortable silence until Jordan stumbled into the dining hall. After a quick breeze through the food line, he sat down with just a cup of piping-hot coffee and a slice of Boston cream pie. He didn’t even say hello. Rain and the steam from the coffee fogged his glasses.

But Dan couldn’t wait any longer. “I got a note,” he blurted, startling Abby and Jordan. He reached into his back pocket and took out the card, dropping it onto the table between them. Jordan picked it up. “‘How do you kill a hydra?’ What the hell?”

“Turn it over.”

Jordan read the back, his face a mixture of confusion and distaste.

“What is this? Where did it come from?” Jordan pushed the card away with a grimace, and Abby grabbed it.

“It was on my desk when I got back from class. Felix didn’t see who left it, but someone managed to get into the room even though I’m sure I locked the door. You guys didn’t get anything like this?”